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Thursday, September 17, 2026

MEET PALANTIR PARKER

ASM CONSIDERS RE-ELECTION

Is it just more super-hero technology or subtle support for mass surveilance?

Following alleged procedural violations, the Student Judiciary considers revote.

+ OPINION, PAGE 5

+ NEWS, PAGE 3

What community members want in UW-Madison’s next chancellor By Sean Walsh STAFF WRITER

The University of Wisconsin-Madison’s next chancellor should be in it for the long haul, community members told the university’s Chancellor Search and Screen Committee on Sept. 10, urging the next leader to build lasting relationships with Wisconsin communities and stand up for the university amid growing political financial pressures. Students, staff, alumni and community members gathered at the final public listening session of the chancellor search to tell the committee the characteristics and skills they’re looking for in the university’s next leader. Among their priorities were a longer stay than former Chancellor

Jennifer Mnookin, connection with rural communities and an ability to speak up to the legislature. Regent Amy Bogost said the committee hopes to select and announce a new chancellor this fall, “if all goes well.” Nominations and applications were due Sept. 10 for “fullest consideration,” according to the committee’s three-page prospectus. The search comes four months after former Chancellor Jennifer Mnookin left UW-Madison for Columbia after four years with Wisconsin. Her departure left some disappointed to be going through the leadership transition again. University staff member Terry Fritter said UW-Madison has lacked commitment from

the past several chancellors, arguing they keep leaving before they can fully invest in the campus. Before Mnookin, Rebecca Blank served as chancellor for nine years, from 2013 to 2022. Her tenure was the longest UW-Madison has seen since the 1980s. “We made commitments to the last several chancellors, but they didn’t seem to really make one with us,” Fritter said. Another attendee said they felt in many regions of the state, Wisconsinites don’t fully understand the value a top research university brings: research dollars, medical breakthroughs and economic activity that reaches well beyond Madison’s boundaries. They said a leader needs to build relationships and visibility between UW-Madison

and the rest of the state, speak up to the legislature and travel to rural communities to show the university’s value. “Most people see UW as football, basketball and their taxes. We have to be more than that,” they said. Several attendees also acknowledged how hard the chancellor job has become. Leading a major research university now means navigating shrinking state support and political pressure on higher education, all while balancing a $5 billion budget. Students and staff also said a chancellor should be willing to “dress down” and interact with student organizations on a personal level. Continue reading @dailycardinal.com

‘Nobody’s going to tell us what to write’: NYT journalists talk trust, transparency and reporting By Sonia Bendre & Zoey Jiang CAMPUS NEWS EDITOR & ASSOCIATES EDITOR

Trust in journalism comes down to questions reporters face every day: What should be covered? What should be left out? And how can journalists show readers their decisions are based on reporting rather than an agenda? Three New York Times (NYT) reporters and editors sat down with University of Wisconsin-Madison students and faculty in a panel discussing their approach to independent journalism, reporting on the White House and the challenges of covering elections amid record-high levels of media distrust. The panel was part of the New York Times’s 175th anniversary celebration and featured Assistant Managing Editor for Standards and Trust Patrick Healy, who moderated the discussion, and White House correspondent Zolan Kanno-Youngs and Chicago Bureau Chief Julie Bosman, who is also a UW-Madison alumna. Healy opened the panel by asking the audience whether they trusted the news media. Most hands went up when he asked who was “on the fence.” “Trust is at a real low in the news media,” Healy said. “The single biggest driver that erodes trust that we

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found in the Times and in the news media is the perception of bias: people think we have an agenda, that we’re putting our thumb on the scale, that we’re taking sides in stories.” Independence and transparency Healy said the New York Times’s approach to journalism has changed significantly in the past 50 years ago, joking the newspaper had a “bit of an

attitude” back then about being the only source determining which news was real news. Their philosophy has since changed. Since the Times published their first print edition in 1851, the news landscape has changed considerably. The 24-hour news cycle and new forms of digital journalism, like short-form videos and live-feed updates, have changed the way readers encounter the news.

Kanno-Youngs pointed to coverage as an example. “The way you might initially consume [news of a court decision] is through a live briefing on the website where you have our Supreme Court reporters giving you line-by-line analysis,” Kanno-Youngs said. But greater engagement with audiences also creates difficult editorial decisions. The journalists said they still struggle with decid-

ing what to or what not to report. Observing what readers talk about on social media, the journalists try to write about what their audiences want to see while making sure the story is contextualized. “Our North Star, something we really think about and live every day, is this idea of independent journalism: that nobody’s going to tell us what to write,” Healy said. “We are applying our news judgment to events. We cannot write about everything. We cannot cover everything. We are making choices.” Those choices, the panelists said, are part of what makes transparency important to building trust. Readers may disagree with what a newsroom chooses to emphasize, but journalists must be able to explain why they made those decisions. Healy said the NYT will be publishing articles later this week about their coverage amid their 175th anniversary, including their Civil War coverage. “We were kind of an eyewitness to events from the 19th century to Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Israel [and] Gaza, where we’ve been pushing the Israeli government on letting journalists go in independently into Gaza to tell those stories,” he said. Continue reading @dailycardinal.com

“…the great state University of Wisconsin should ever encourage that continual and fearless sifting and winnowing by which alone the truth can be found.”

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Thursday, September 17, 2026

An independent student newspaper, serving the University of Wisconsin-Madison community since 1892 Volume 136, Issue 5

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UW-Madison cyber expert talks AI geopolitics, cybersecurity By Katherine Strangberg STAFF WRITER

Editor-in-Chief Alaina Walsh

Managing Editor Avery Chheda

News Team Campus Editor Sonia Bendre College Editor Grace Carlson City Editor Jane Dardik State Editor Audrey Lopez-Stane Associate News Editor Zoey Jiang Features Editor Jake Kilander Opinion Editors Brady Ahler • Siena Ferraro Arts Editors Ryan Kim • Liset Zacker Sports Editors Otton von Sothen • Hallie Opp Sports Associate Editor Luca Muehlbauer Special Pages Editor Natalie Popper Photo Editor Jonathan Mintz Graphics Editors Eloise Guth • Klaire Maduscha Science Editors Lauren Eno • Addison Dama Life & Style Editors Isabella Bajaras • Jackson Baker Beet Editor Lizzi McGann Podcast Directors Yadiel Chavez • Amelia Fowler Digital Editor Meredith Schadrie Video Director Ted Hyngstrom Copy Chiefs Emma Schieffer • Brendan Wolf Copy Editors Isabella Barajas • Delaney Chronister

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Dave Schroeder, Director of National Security Initiatives at the University of WisconsinMadison and Manager of Cyber Programs and Designations for the College of Computing and Artificial Intelligence spoke about AI’s role in geopolitics and increasing cybersecurity threats at a Badger Talks event hosted by the Madison Committee on Foreign Relations Sept. 9. As AI rapidly develops on campus with the opening of the College of Computing and Artificial Intelligence, Schroeder said each time he presents, his information feels out of date because of how quickly the technology is evolving. When he began presenting about AI, it was rare that anyone in the room had interacted with it. Now, that is far from the truth. “Really everyone is using AI in some form…the explosion of these large language models, these chatbots, have been the thing that has really animated our imagination and brought a lot of attention to this domain,” Schroeder said. Large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT and Gemini, while the most widely used, are only a small fraction of what AI is capable of. AI now has increasing military and government applications. “Whether that is the targeting and decision process, or drone swarms, these things are all accelerated with AI,” Schroeder said. Schroeder referenced the weaponization of AI controlled drone strikes in the Russia-Ukraine war, noting “the entire attack chain is AI.” Humans are no longer in “the loop” according to Schroeder when it comes to important and lethal military decisions, often acting only as “button pushers,” allowing AI to make the decisions. “So we need to have discussions

about what it means to have human decision making removed from lethal decisions in warfare…This transcends politics. This is something that we’re going to have to figure out,” Schroeder said. Data collection controversy Schroeder addressed apprehensions regarding the data collection necessary to train LLMs, which has caused controversy in recent months. “It’s [LLM training] coming from any data that you’ve agreed to in the terms of service that can be used by that service provider in any way they see fit, and if they have permission to use it, whether it’s uploading photos or text, they’re using it because AI models are hungry for training data,” Schroeder said. The collection of data has led to cybersecurity threats all over the country. AI models have gained abilities to hack without any input from humans, jumping from machine to machine. Schroeder shared examples of foreign AI gaining access to water utilities and power plants across the nation, places that may seem militarily useless, but house important data. AI has also hacked into digital data libraries without the prompting or assistance of humans. “Anyone who’s targeted always thinks that ‘Oh, no one cares about me. I’m not a national security target.’ Well, you know what? Everything’s a target, and AI is lowering the bar to targeting virtually anything and everything,” Schroeder said. Schroeder also talked about concerns regarding the data centers and resources needed to accommodate AI technology. More than 50 data centers currently reside in Wisconsin, with more being proposed by tech companies. The environmental con-

cerns, such as power and water usage, as well as community worries surrounding the amount of space the centers take up has been pressing for Wisconsinites. “What’s unique about AI is compared to other types of IT services, it needs a lot more computing, a lot more power, a lot more networking, and so that equates to more physical equipment that needs to be housed in buildings, and that’s where you see this current frenzy of buildouts with data centers,” Schroeder said. AI race between the US and China While the answer may seem to be to halt AI development, the choice is not that simple, according to Shroeder. As the United States continues to advance in the AI industry, so does China. “We’re in a race with China, and it’s not unlike the race to space or to the bomb, and we need to win that race,” Schroeder said. With the introduction of LLMs like Deepseek, China is head to head with the US in AI development, and not just in the LLM field. AI development has become a proxy of government power. Schroeder said China still relies on US technologies to aid in their development. If the US wants to stay ahead of China in the race, Schroeder said development must continue at full speed ahead. “If we slow or stop AI development in the United States to the point where China comes out as the resounding winner, what global implications does that have?” Schroeder said. The race with China and the rapid development of AI models has opened a door to threats AI companies do not even understand themselves, according to Schroeder. “We’re in kind of the no rules era of AI development. Full speed ahead, and you have people resign-

ing from our frontier AI companies saying ‘I’m resigning because I think that AI is going to end humanity,’” Schroeder said. UW-Madison AI development Schroeder said AI developments on campus have emulated what responsible progress can look like. “One of the College of Engineering’s six moonshots is what we call embodied AI. Iit’s the idea that we need to develop our own technology landscape that lets us build our own devices, whether they’re more traditional-looking factory robots or humanoid robots that are not dependent on foreign supply chains and technology,” Schroeder said. Badgers have the opportunity to lead AI in the right direction, and the campus has already received recognition for doing so, receiving more grants from the Genesis Mission — a Department of Energy federal initiative centered around AI research — than any other public university thus far. “The idea [of the Genesis Mission] is to take AI and apply it across disciplines using all of the scientific data that we’ve collected…feed it into AI models, and use this to supercharge the next generation of science and discovery,” Schroeder said. “Something that we can be proud of here is that UW-Madison was second in the country for the number of Genesis awards that we got, behind only MIT.” Schroeder concluded the talk with helping listeners find hope for the future of AI. “The good side of AI is to use all of the things that we’ve already discovered and ask the question: ‘How can these things be related to make new discoveries that we might never have even anticipated?’” Schroeder said.

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Thursday, September 17, 2026 • 3

Madison mayoral race ASM members may call jumps to six candidates for chair re-election at next session meeting By Jane Dardik CITY NEWS EDITOR

Five people announced their campaigns to run for Madison mayor against incumbent Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway in the spring 2027 election, many with similar policies championing affordability, public safety and government accountability. The next mayor will face an $11 million gap in the operating budget and citizen unrest after the Corey Ruiz shooting. Kaleem Caire, founder and CEO of One City Schools, told the Wisconsin State Journal he intended to announce his candidacy for mayor on Sept. 15, but no announcement was made and no paperwork had been filed to the city as of Sept. 16. All of the candidates mentioned police brutality or violence prevention except for Williams and Rhodes-Conway. Housing affordability was also mentioned by most of those running, as Madison broke its previous record on single-family home prices.

ZOEY ELWOOD/THE DAILY CARDINAL

By Sonia Bendre CAMPUS NEWS EDITOR

The Associated Students of Madison (ASM) Student Judiciary ruled that ASM representatives could pass a motion to re-elect their 33rd session chair by a simple majority, setting up a possible rematch at the Sept. 16 general meeting. Three candidates ran for chair last April: professional student Michael Harry, then sophomore Lander Levers and then junior Haia Al Zein. Representatives voted 9-1011 for Levers, Al Zein and Harry respectively in a preliminary voting round, then elected Al Zein by a 16-14 vote over Harry. The new order does not “name or limit which candidates would be eligible in any resulting election” on Sept. 16, the ASM Student Judiciary told The Daily Cardinal in an email statement. The order aims to address whether “alleged procedural violations” by former ASM Chair Landis Varughese “wrongly influenced” the April election. In a petitioner’s brief to the Student Judiciary, Harry called the April 24 election procedure invalid because Varughese presided over the meeting instead of the student judiciary’s chief justice — a violation of ASM’s bylaw 3.03(2)(a), which does not provide a clear exception for the rule that a chief justice should preside over the first meeting of a new session, including chair election proceedings. Varughese presided over the original April 24 election meeting in the absence of the Student Judiciary’s chief justice and vice chief justice, according to an ASM student judiciary order. Harry said that Varughese allowed personal attacks, didn’t follow proper proceedings and displayed bias toward Al Zein, skewing the election process. The ASM Chair is appointed by Student Council members and “acts as the official spokesperson of the ASM, presides over the ASM Student Council [and] facilitates meetings with the UW administration and leadership,” according to the ASM website. Jianda Ni, a former professional student representative, told the Cardinal the chair acts as a moderator similar to the Speaker of the House. According to the judiciary order, a student judiciary member will preside over the Sept. 16 meeting instead

of Chair Al Zein “until the matter is resolved,” though Al Zein may “speak and vote on matters as the remanded issue is being addressed.” The student council must vote by a two-thirds majority to adopt the special order onto the agenda before deliberating the issue, according to the student judiciary’s email statement to The Cardinal. If the issue is deliberated, the student council may then choose by a simple majority whether to entertain a re-election process. The judiciary order stated open forum speakers must identify as students, abide by time limits, register before speaking and submit any anonymous letters to the Vice Chief Justice before 3:00 p.m. Sept. 16 with proof of enrollment — a change from the April 24 meeting, when non-students were allowed to submit testimony for open forum although several of their statements were not read. Open forum speakers are allowed to criticize ASM, its officers, UW-Madison or university administrators, make controversial statements and opinions and comment on advocacy matters. They are not allowed to make “true threats of violence” or “incitement to lawless action,” according to the judiciary order. What happened at the original election? Harry’s petitioner’s brief claimed Varughese “systematically disregarded the meeting rules” by allowing decorum violations, restarting votes, dropping Levers from consideration by a secret ballot vote and originally intending to endorse a candidate at the April 24 election. The brief also claimed Varughese improperly allowed a personal attack by former student Genevieve Lambert, who acted as shared governance chair during the 32nd session, on candidate Lander Levers to continue. The brief ultimately claimed Varughese’s actions undermined the voting process and influenced the final decision. Typically, student council chair elections are held in the first meeting of a new ASM session along

with elections for specific committees. Student council members may nominate themselves or other elected members on the council to serve as chair. In last year’s election, Varughese was the only nominee for chair. Varughese originally entered his April 24 open forum speech as “endorsement!” in a Google Sheet, Harry, Ni and former student council member Elizabeth Anderson told The Cardinal. The text was removed prior to his speech, and Varughese instead offered reflections on his tenure. Varughese declined the Cardinal’s request for an interview, citing ASM leadership transitions. During the April 24 open forum, Lambert began to make statements critical of Harry and Levers, stating they lacked the “trust of their fellow student leaders” and “a willingness to play a supportive role in decentralized advocacy.” She also made a critical statement about Levers’ representation of students during meetings with university leaders. At this point, student council representative Idrees Ahmed interrupted the statement, stating it was a personal attack. Varughese said there was no precedent for applying points of order for personal attacks during an open forum and originally planned to let the speech proceed. After an objection, Varughese asked council members in favor of allowing Lambert’s speech to raise their placards. Then, he restarted the vote, clarifying that a “yes vote” would instead be to overrule Lambert’s testimony and adding, “There’s been no precedent of us interrupting open forum speakers, at least in my time, regardless of the content of their speech.” Thirteen members voted to stop the speech, and 10 voted for the speech to continue. Because less than a two-thirds majority voted to stop the speech, Varughese allowed Lambert’s speech to continue. Harry told the Cardinal the simple majority vote should have been enough to stop Lambert’s testimony from being read, and Varughese should not have restarted the original voting process. Continue reading @ dailycardinal. com

April Kigeya April Kigeya launched her mayoral campaign on Sept. 10, championing the working class and acknowledging Madison’s faults in affordability. Kigeya announced her candidacy with a video highlighting local concerns like rent prices and neighborhood safety. She said she will support small businesses, “good-paying jobs” and housing affordability. “The challenges facing our city are real, but so is our ability to solve them,” Kigeya said in the video. “When we listen to one another, bring people together and put working families at the center of our decisions, we can build one Madison where all of us belong and all of us can thrive.” Her campaign website lists seven priorities, including a community-led government and one residents can trust. Goals of Kigeya’s candidacy include violence prevention, expanding mobile crisis responses and holding open office hours. Rhodes-Conway Rhodes-Conway has been in office since 2019 and is promoting her work on affordable housing and modern transit system in her re-election campaign. She said, if reelected, she will work to make housing, transportation, energy bills and property taxes more affordable. Rhodes-Conway blamed COVID19 for delaying priorities in her first term and the focus on housing

affordability in her second term for neglecting other areas, according to the Wisconsin State Journal. Brian Benford

Brian Benford, former City Council member and alderman, stepped back from Madison politics three years ago, but in August he told the Cap Times he had to run for mayor after a “lack of city leadership” in the wake of the Corey Ruiz shooting. If elected, Benford said he will focus on supporting minority and marginalized groups in Madison, only running for one term in order to pass leadership to the younger generation. Syed Abbas Syed Abbas, former Common Council president and alderman, currently serves as Wisconsin’s Deputy Legislative Director at the Department of Health Services. “We need to make housing more affordable, strengthen our neighborhoods, support economic opportunity, invest wisely in public safety and infrastructure, and make sure every Madisonian has a chance to succeed,” Abbas said on his campaign website. He notes the end goal of his mayoral run is making Madison a place people settle in by lowering property taxes, making homeownership more achievable and decreasing homelessness through city-run supportive housing programs. Jonny Hinds Johnny Hinds, known as Jon Hinds, founded the Monkey Bar Gym in Madison and has been outspoken on Facebook about police brutality, the spending of city funds and homelessness. “Because ultimately, I think we all want the same things: we don’t want people being shot on our streets,” Hinds wrote on a post. “We don’t want families feeling ignored or forgotten. We don’t want police officers put in situations where they have to make a split-second decision they’ll live with forever.” Larry Williams Larry “Ace” Williams is a food service and hospitality director who submitted his paperwork close to Kigeya and Hinds. Not much else is known about him, according to 77 Square Miles. The spring primary election will be held Feb. 16, 2027 and the spring election will be April 6, 2027, with all candidate options being finalized on Jan. 5, 2027.

LAUREN AGUILA/THE DAILY CARDINAL

4 • Thursday, September 27, 2026

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